


Of Barbs, Bonds, and Binds

by SabbyStarlight



Series: Cairo Week 2020! [7]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Cairo Week 2020, Gen, Harper being her creepy self once again, Hurt Jack, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, the ties that bind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23726626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyStarlight/pseuds/SabbyStarlight
Summary: Day Six:  The Ties That BindApparently I've started a little tradition of my own and it wouldn't be a MacGyver event without Harper Hayes showing up somewhere in one of my fics.
Series: Cairo Week 2020! [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701235
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	Of Barbs, Bonds, and Binds

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to read the other ones Harper fics I’ve done, but this will probably make a lot more sense if you have. And I'm sorry this one is almost late, there were literally only a few hundred words done on this when I woke up this morning and that's it. So it's a little rushed, but oh well. It's finished! Enjoy!

It wasn't very often that they ended up camping out in an actual house on a mission. They considered any time they were given a hotel room a win, but the only source of lodging in the tiny little middle-America town Mac and Jack had been sent to on this particular mission was a privately owned little bed and breakfast. Matty hadn't been able to clear it, not wanting to alarm the elderly couple who had been running the place for decades, so instead, she had transferred some of Phoenix's rainy day fund into purchasing an old farmhouse on the edge of town. The place had been abandoned for a few years but was still in good shape, and after some minor repairs and stocking by the team sent in undercover to act as the happy couple who had just purchased the place, Phoenix had a new up-and-running safe house that Mac and Jack had the honor of getting to be the first team to use while hunting down a suspected arms dealer. 

The mission had paid-vacation written all over it. Spend a week or so in town, tracking the man’s habits and try to narrow down his transport schedule and, if they were really lucky, the location of his supply house. They had been there for three days, getting paid to try out all the options at the little diner in town and to actually get caught up on some sleep without being woken up by car alarms and sirens going off in the distance, all in the name of surveillance. It was the best mission they had been sent on in a long time, maybe ever, and Jack had said as much that evening, sitting beside Mac on the front porch, beer in hand, each of them perched on the railing instead of sitting on the swing so they could see the stars that were, for once, not marred by smog and city lights. He should have known better than to say it. That was always the moment things took a turn for the worse and this time was no different. 

He didn't know what woke him up, only that one moment he was asleep, the quiet outside and the familiar noises of an old farmhouse almost enough to trick him into thinking he was sleeping back home on the ranch, and the next moment he was awake, reaching for the gun beneath his pillow out of instinct. He flipped back the quilt he had covered up with and waited for the sound to come again, creeping in through the crack he had left in the single-paned window, but the room stayed silent. 

Stepping over the creaky spot on the floor, three boards away from the doorframe that he had taken note of his first time in the room, he crept into the hall, gun drawn, and pushed the door to Mac's room open. He was still asleep, if he had heard the same thing Jack had it hadn't been enough to wake him. Jack stood there for a moment, watching his partner's chest rise and fall, assuring himself that he really was fine, before moving on, leaving the door open, just a bit, behind him. Every room in the house cleared, Jack hesitated before opening the front door, sending a brief glance up the staircase to where Mac was still sleeping. If they had been made, and the arms dealer they were supposed to be tracking had been tracking them instead, there was sure to be a firefight happening and Jack didn't want Mac anywhere near it. 

The gun in his hand was little help against the metallic thunk that sounded out as something connected, hard, with the back of his skull and he dropped to the ground, asleep again, this time against his will.

Jack wasn't sure what woke him up when he finally regained consciousness. It could have been the cold, it was still a few months away from summer and he hadn't bothered to put on a shirt over the pajama bottoms he had fallen asleep in, or it could have been the sharp stinging pain biting into his wrists and ankles, nearly overshadowing the pounding ache in the back of his head, pulsing with each heartbeat. 

Or maybe, it was the hand that kept slowly dragging a set of fingernails up and down the side of his neck. Yeah, that was probably it. 

"Aw, c'mon," He groaned as he pried his eyes open, squinting through the hazy light filtering through an oil lantern sitting on the floor beside him, and saw Harper Hayes smiling down at him. "You? Seriously?" 

"Serious as a heart attack," She leaned closer, trailing her fingers down his chest to rest above his pounding heart. "Are you not happy to see me, Jack?"

"The hell are you doin' here?" Clearly she was smart enough to have taken his gun when she knocked him out, his best course of action would be to keep her talking while he took in his surroundings, tried to come up with a plan. The idea became a little less appealing when he realized they were in what appeared to be the old barn at the corner of the safe house property and he was tied with his back against one of the roughly-hewed support pillars. 

"Oh, now I think I could ask you the same thing." She replied, stepping away and waving towards the view she had just opened, knowing exactly what he was doing in asking questions. "Imagine my surprise when I caught wind that my favorite toy happened to find himself in the sleepy little town I've been hiding out in. Not gonna lie, I was kinda flattered at first, thinking you'd come all this way out here to find me. Thought maybe you missed me, it's been a while, after all, since we went a round, you and I. But I did some digging and you weren't here for me at all, were you Jack? You didn't even know I was anywhere close, let alone right under your nose."

The stinging pain in his wrists and ankles was explained as she lit another lamp, setting it on his other side and illuminating the shadows in the cavernous building enough for him to see that she had tied him up with barbed wire. 

"Really?" He turned his head, feeling even more vulnerable with her behind him. Unable to see what she was doing. "Barbed wire? Look at how rusty it is. Do you know how big of a pain that's gonna be to get out? Literally? Not cool, Hayes. Now, on top of it already hurtin', and the concussion you left me with, Imma have to go get a damn tetanus shot now, you watch and see. Hate those things. They friggin' burn." He let some of the actual fear he was feeling bleed onto his face, exaggerated panic drawing his eyes wide. "You're up to date on yours, right? I sure hope so, the way you're clawin' me all up and down. Though tetanus is probably the least concerning thing I should be worrying about catching from you..."

His taunting was cut off by a slap, hard enough to twist his chin around to nearly touching his shoulder. "See, now, you say I'm your favorite," He continued, trying to shake off the sudden sting but it only made the pounding in the back of his head flare worse. "But you sure do like hurtin' me an awful lot. Don't think that's a very healthy relationship. Makes me think this whole barbed wire idea was more on the downright demented side of things instead of the fun, consensual, kinky side."

"I used what I had on hand," She shrugged, dropping down to sit on his lap, invading his space and leaving him thinking that maybe he was wrong, and having her that close was worse than not knowing where she was after all. 

He didn't bother with a response, just stared pointedly at the coil of rope only a few feet away from them, easily accessible and much more convenient to tie up a hostage with. 

"Okay, you caught me," She grinned. No matter how many times he saw it, Jack never got used to the eeriness of her smile. He had gone up against the worst of the worst in his life and this woman creeped him out more than all of them combined. "The wire was a choice. But I improvised. I've heard you're a fan of that."

"Look, you've got me pretty good and stuck, alright?" Jack dropped the joking tone from his voice. He knew it was futile, but he had to at least attempt to reason with her. He was already sitting on the ground with his legs tied, and with his hands tied behind his back he had no leverage. And that was before she was sitting on his lap. "I ain't goin' nowhere. Not rippin' my way out of this mess you went and made. You leave now, you can be long gone by the time someone finds me. It gives you a pretty solid head start. I'd take it if I were you." 

"You sure you're not just worried about that boy of yours, sound asleep in that old house?" She teased, letting her hands trail across his shoulders, thumb tracing the scar she had left there. "All alone up there, without his bodyguard to keep him safe. Maybe we should let him join in on the fun. Wouldn't want him to feel left out. He enjoyed himself last time, didn't he? I know I did." 

"You leave him alone and I'll try to talk my supervisors into not issuing a kill-on-sight order for the next time we track you down," Jack offered. He hated that she knew Mac was the easiest way for him to lose his cool but there was no point in pretending she didn't know exactly which card to play to get the biggest rise out of him. "Give you a chance to try stayin' in whatever hole we throw you in this time." 

"Because that worked so well the last couple times you tried it," She purred, leaning forward, pressing her lips against the shell of his ear and he tried to convince himself that the shivers that coursed through his body were from the cold. "Good try though." She leaned back, looping her hands behind his neck. "And you're right. As bad as I hate it, I can't stay to enjoy it this time. I didn't know you were coming, didn't have any time to prepare. This was just a quick little visit to say hello. Make sure you haven't forgotten about me." 

"So what, you went through all this work and just plan on leavin' me here?" Jack frowned, squinting through his headache until he understood. "Yeah, yeah of course you are. You have to. I'm not going willingly, we both know that, and a town this small? Everybody knows everybody. New face shows up? Lookin' as crazy as your does? People were bound to notice." There was a flash of anger in her eyes and Jack knew he had struck a nerve. So he kept going. "Not only did they notice when you got here, but they're gonna be keepin' an eye out for when you leave. And if it was just you? Then sure, you could steal off in the middle of the night, nobody would think twice. Good riddance, and all that. But I ain't going to play along, so you'd need me knocked out for the whole trip to whatever poor town's the next stop on your psycho world tour. And you'd need help for that. Have to leave a trail. And you know my boy up there's good enough to find us if you did that. Probably before we even cross state lines." 

"Well done," She praised, "You see, that's the thing I love most about you Jack. You're so much smarter than everyone gives you credit for. You play up that good ol' boy charm, let people think you don't know what's going on, when in reality? You probably know more than all of them combined. That's what made me decide, that first day back on that island, that you were worthy of my attention." 

"Well, lucky me." Jack deadpanned, trying to keep his voice monotonous and bored while just the mention of that cursed island was enough to give him nightmares. 

"You wanna know a secret?" 

"Honey, I hate to break it to ya, but everyone already knows your downright certifiable. That ain't no secret." 

"No, this is a good secret," She assured, swinging a leg to the side and standing up with much more grace than someone half made of metal should be able to move. "I'm going to help you, Jack, as a thank you for the lovely surprise." 

"Ah, I hope you kept the receipt from that gift," Jack shook his head in disappointment. "I'll probably be wanting to return it. Get myself somethin' I'll actually want."

"The man you were sent here to find?" She continued as if he hadn't spoke. "You don't have to worry about him anymore. I took care of it for you." 

"You finished the reconnaissance portion of the mission, recorded evidence of his illegal activities and sent the proof to the Phoenix director and organized a strike team to take him in, alive, and set up another team to track down, categorize. record and properly dispose of the goods he was trafficking?" He scoffed. "I doubt it." 

"Oh. That was the plan?" She stepped behind him again, sending Jack's already on-edge nerves skyrocketing. "Oops. No, sorry. Didn't do that. He's dead though. And you can continue your little pretend vacation without having to do any actual work now." Her hands trailed down the backs of his arms and he slammed his eyes closed, trying not to flinch. She had slipped on a pair of gloves at some point, which was not a good sign. "You might need it." Her lips were against his ear again and that was the only warning he got before her hands closed around his bound wrists and squeezed

If the barbed wire had been painful before, it had shifted to agony as she drove it into the sensitive skin at his joints. The only thing that was able to keep him from screaming was the thought that it could wake Mac and the last thing he wanted was to have to watch his partner suffer at the hands of Harper Hayes again. 

"Gosh, you're pretty when you're hurting." Jack barely noticed that her hands had moved, the damage was already done, but her voice coming from somewhere in front of him had him peering up at her, gritting his teeth, watching as she slowly pulled the worn leather gloves off her hands one finger at a time. "Never gets old. It's a damn good image for the road, that's for sure." 

He was fairly certain that if he opened his mouth to try and respond all that would come out would be a growl, a combination of pain and fury that she would probably enjoy instead of feeling threatened by, so he stayed silent. 

"Bye, Jack," She called as she backed towards the door, never taking her eyes away from his, shooting him a wink as if she knew the exact reason he didn't bother with a parting remark of his own. "See you soon." 

He waited, holding his breath, listening for any sound once she was out of his sight. A car, or some sort of getaway vehicle, or worse, the sound of the door to the farmhouse opening, but everything was quiet. He leaned back against the rough post he was tied to, allowing himself a moment to acknowledge the pain and try to get his breathing under control. Pretending he couldn't feel the steady drips of blood leaking from the barbs embedded into his wrists, sliding down his hands and dropping off his fingertips into the hard-packed dirt floor beneath him. "So long as she's really gone, Mac," He whispered, low enough that even if Harper was somewhere watching from the outside of the barn, like she had been the last time she took both Mac and Jack for one of her games, she couldn't hear him. "I could really use your help right about now, buddy." 

It was only moments later when he heard the slam of a door and Jack's head shot up with a jolt. 

"Jack?" Mac's voice called out through the darkness outside and Jack's priorities shifted. 

"I'm in here, bud. Careful. Keep an eye out, she can't have gone too far." 

"Who?" Mac asked, and Jack could hear the confused frown on his face just from that one word. "What's going on? Your gun was laying on the porch." The barn doors squeaked as he pushed them open with a huff. "What..." His question trailed off as his eyes adjusted to the flickering yellow light coming from the fading lanterns and he saw his partner. 

"Three guesses," Jack forced a smile. "And the first two don't count."

"She was here?" Mac rushed forward, dropping to his knees and reaching out a hand but falling short of actually touching the older man, not sure where was unharmed. "How'd she follow us?"

"She didn't," Jack sighed, sagging against the beam behind him, adrenaline finally crashing now that Mac was safe and within his sight, and the pain came washing over him in waves. "Long story. I'll tell you all 'bout it, just, maybe when I'm a little less tied up? You know I like to talk with my hands." 

Mac winced in sympathy, letting a gentle hand land on Jack's shoulder as he took one last worried look at the rusted mess entrapping Jack's ankles. "Did she use this damn wire on them too?" There was a sharp intake of breath, not quite a gasp but awfully close, that let Jack pinpoint the exact second Mac answered his own question. "Oh, that's even worse." 

"Yeah, she had a little fun back there," Jack agreed. "Hey, you think you can scrounge up a pair of wire cutters around here? We're in a barn, after all, have to be some layin' around somewhere. I have a feelin' it's gonna take a while to take care of this one and I'd rather be inside the house when we do."

"Yeah," Mac squeezed the back of his neck, his touch so different, so familiar and easy in a way that Harper's had been the exact opposite of and Jack found himself blinking back tears at the comfort offered there. "Hang tight, I'll see what I can find." Mac grabbed the closest lantern and headed off towards the closest tool bench, hoping he could find what he needed without having to leave Jack's sight. 

"Found a pair," He announced, hurrying back to Jack's side, kneeling beside his bare feet. "I'm gonna start with these, okay? See how bad the easy ones are gonna be before we touch that mess she made of your wrists." 

"Yeah, just be careful. Don’t need you hurt too." Jack nodded, letting his eyes fall closed as Mac started working, trying not to wince at the sting of each barb being pulled free, saving the moments he allowed the pain to show on his face for only the really bad ones. 

"Okay," Mac's voice startled him out of the half-asleep state he had let himself slip into. "You should be able to move at least, I'll have to clean them out once we get inside, this stuff is nasty. You want a break before I start on your hands?"

"Nope," Jack shook his head, groaning as he slowly rotated his ankles, trying to restart the circulation going back into his feet and pretending that he wasn't feeling the pinch and pull from each puncture mark and scrape. "Get it over with." 

"Oh, man, this is, this is bad, Jack," Mac's voice wavered as he got a close-up look at the damage. "I don't know if I can... I wish we were closer to Medical."

"Don't try to get it out yet, then. Just, cut through it enough that I can move my arms and we'll deal with it once we're inside." 

"Okay," Mac agreed, grateful to have been given a plan, a smaller task outside of simply fixing the problem. "It's still going to hurt though." 

"That's fine. You can't make it hurt any worse'n she did, diggin' into me like she was." Jack assured. "You got this, hoss." 

Jack could barely hear the snick from each strand of the coiled wire over the whirring buzz of pain that was flooding his brain, but eventually, his hands were set free, at least from their entanglement of one another, and they fell to the floor with a dull thump and he couldn't hold back a scream.

"Sorry, 'm sorry," Mac's voice, scared, guilty, unsure, all the things Jack was hardwired to prevent him from feeling, broke through the haze that had fallen over his vision. One of Mac's hands was back on his neck, Jack could feel it, thumb brushing along the scruff on his jaw, and the other was trying to rub away the tremors ghosting through his blood-streaked palms. 

"You weren't kiddin' were ya?" He asked, getting his first look at the latest damage courtesy of one Harper Hayes. "Bitch really did a number on me this time." 

Mac nodded. Jack's voice hadn't erased nearly as much of the haunted look in Mac's blue eyes as he had hoped, but it was a start. "You think you're with me enough to make it inside? I didn't grab my phone on the way out and I don't want to leave you. We need to call Matty, have her get the closest ER cleared and ready for us. I'm not doing any more damage than I have already."

"You didn't make it worse," Jack promised, waiting until Mac looked up and met his eyes before continuing. "None of this is on you. But I'm ready to get in out of the cold if you are. I'm with you on thinkin' we're gonna have to call on the pros for this one."

"If you need to stop you tell me, okay?" Mac asked, holding on to Jack's shoulders as he swayed, unsteady on his feet, once Mac had helped him to stand. 

"I'm good," He assured, trying to blink the white spots out of his vision and convince himself that the floor hadn't suddenly started swaying once he was upright and took a few hesitant steps. "Just the concussion, not pain." 

"Concussion?" Mac's exclamation was the reminder that he had been so focused on the rusty wires twining around his wrists and ankles that he had forgotten to mention the head wound that had been the kickoff to the night's events. 

"Yeah," He sighed, taking a determined step further. "A little bitty one. Least of our worries at the moment, pal." 

It felt like days had passed in that barn, but the world outside was still dark when he stepped outside and took a deep breath of fresh air. When Jack looked up as they slowly made their way across the damp grass towards the house, the moon was still high in the night sky. It couldn't have been more than a few hours at the very most. "How'd you know to come lookin' for me anyway?" 

"I... I actually don't know," Mac's laugh was void of any humor, but Jack appreciated the effort. "I woke up, wasn't having a nightmare or anything, but I could have sworn I heard you say you needed me. Thought maybe the nightmare was happening on your side of the wall but when I went over to check you weren't there." 

"I'm not sure what this crazy telepathic bond thing we've got goin' is," Jack grinned, "But damn if I ain't thankful for it in times like this." 

"Telepathy isn't real," Mac reminded him, carefully ducking under Jack's shoulder to help him up the steps leading to the porch. 

"You can say that all you want," Jack conceded, breathing a sigh of relief as they crossed the threshold into the warm kitchen and Mac pulled out a chair for him to collapse into. "But there's some kind of something connecting your brain to mine, like it or not." 

"Okay," Mac clapped him on the shoulder and shook his head in fond exasperation. "Whatever you say, dude. I'm gonna run upstairs, call Matty and have her get the ball rolling for us over at the hospital, okay? You just sit there and keep thinking about whatever weird, psychic link you think we share." 

"No other explanation for it," He called, knowing Mac was listening even once he was out of the kitchen. "It's always worked on my end but you proved tonight that the connection goes both ways." 

"Sure Jack," Mac's voice echoed as it called down the stairs. "Okay. We can blame it on the concussion you forgot to tell me about in the morning." 

Concussion or not, there was no other way to explain it, at least in Jack's eyes. There was no logical reason for him to know the exact second Mac got Matty on the line and she assured him that she would take care of things, that Jack would be okay, but he felt his partner's relief all the way from upstairs. 

It didn't matter how many storms they weathered together, Jack decided, staring down at the strands of wire still wrapped around his wrists, the connection he and Mac shared wouldn't rust. Some bonds were unbreakable.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge shoutout to panchostokes(badwolfrun) who is an amazing source of encouragement and lover of all things Jack whump. When I mentioned that I might use today's prompt for a Harper fic she instantly answered with "Tie him up! With barbed wire!" And here we are!


End file.
